April 07, 2008

Fort De Chartres stories.

Over at the Spoon and Blade I have the review up of the Les Pays Des Illinois Colonial Trade Faire & Rifle and Musket Frolic. (Gasps for breath after saying that mouthful.) Most re-enactors I know just refer to the event as Fort De Chartres. (Which seems to be mostly pronounced like: Fort Duh Shard). That fills in a lot of the plain day to day stuff, but now I'm going to share with you the stories of things that happened that I didn't put into the review.

First off I left here Thursday and drove to my friend Will's house. If you read the comments on this post, he was one of the ones arguing with me as to whom gets who drunk. Well lets just say, we have an answer to that question. I show up and am not there for more than 5 minutes when he throws a beer at me. Later that night we go out to a local bar in Galesburg called Buddes. They were having an open mic night and Will's son was going to be playing. They had Dirty Bastard on tap. So there we sat, Will, his wife Red, our friend Taco and myself listening to these local kids get up and play songs. Well we'd been drinking since about oh, 1 when he pawned the first beer off on me. We watched and drank and waited for Long Spawn o' Willie to take the stage. This girl gets ups there and starts singing. She's really not that good. The first song was by Patsy Cline and her second by Pink Floyd. About half way through her second song Will starts booing here and telling her she sucks. He goes outside to talk to his son. The girl comes off the stage at the end of the song and goes outside to have a cigarette. The next thing I know she comes running back in crying.

I run outside to make sure Will is okay. I get out there and as soon as I see him I ask, "Did you make that girl cry?" He acknowledged he did, I couldn't help but laugh. Yes, it was mean, yes it was cruel... but dammit, it was funny cause she sucked.

Friday we got down to Fort De Chartres and that night we go to the period Tavern. Everything is done in the style of the 1750's. One of my Mortar Maidens, Davina Baillie whom has long since been captured by the natives and has changed her entire look, is one of the serving wenches. All I know is that when ever I turned around there she was with a pitcher of ale and filling my flagon. Now, I'm not complaining, but I did have to listen to a lot of complaining from my companions. She'd fill mine and then leave them empty. Or she would put the last of the ale in my flagon and then have to go get more. When she came back she'd refill mine before anyone else's. Now she is married to my friend whom I've referred to as Wind in his Hair, his actual native name is Wahoopitae (Wa-hoop-e-tay) I'm not really sure on the spelling, dang natives. Since I knew him and her I felt comfortable in telling everyone that I thought she was trying to get me drunk so she could take advantage of me.

It was at the end of this night that on my long drunken walk back to camp I jumped off of one of the low unfinished walls between the tavern and my camp that I hurt my foot. That just means that every time I go to an event I have to watch for Will, Petey and Davina trying to get me drunk.

Now you would think that I would have learned my lesson the night before, but I didn't. I want back Saturday night. I knew I was safe because Davina wasn't working... or so I thought. I forgot Will and Petey were in there still. Early in the night the tavern was crowded. Standing room only, all the tables and benches were full and the people were standing elbow to elbow in there. At one point a couple of guys get up from a bench to leave. Will, another guy I know called Wolfie and some shorter older guy all sat down on it. A couple of minutes later the older guy gets up. Will tells me to sit down. I really can't because the guy is standing right in front of where the bench is.

Will starts pushing the guy in the back. He turns and looks at Will. Will makes an innocent face and kind of chuckles. Then he starts to do it again, this time when the guy turns around Will points at me and I say, "it wasn't me." The guy then says, "That's okay, we like the French." I roared back "I'm a farooking Scot you Manky Anglish Get*!" I said it in a thick brogue and according to those that witnessed it, there was anger in my voice. So the guy, looking scared, apologizes and backs away. Will and Wolfie are laughing their asses off. I sit down and I'm having a little chuckle, but Will and Wolfie just keep laughing. I didn't think it was that funny.

Will finally says to me, "Do you know who that is?" No, of course I didn't, he was just some short older guy. Will then says, "That's Mark Baker." For those of you not in the re-enacting circle, he is considered some big re-enacting celebrity because he has written articles for magazines and has books out that everyone refers to. Hell, I have some of his stuff. I just never was star struck enough to an author to really care. Well apparently the big joke is that at these events most of the people come up and, to use the phrase they did, "humps his leg" all weekend and tells him how great he is. I meet him and I tell him off. Well anyway, this story spread fast and all I heard for the rest of the weekend is how I told off Mark Baker.

I wasn't even mad, I was just playing around. O'well, at least it's a good story to tell around the campfire. I'm sure many a person will laugh at this.

I had a great time there. I couldn't believe how much fun it was. I also can't believe how quickly it passed by.

*Manky Anglish Get: I've had enough people ask about this I'm just putting up the explication. Manky is Scottish word meaning unclean person or unclean act. Anglish is the nationality (English, just said in a Scottish Brogue) Get: Now more commonly spelled git, started as an illegitimate child/brat. It turned into a contemptible person or a stupid and unpleasant person. So basically when I'm calling him a Manky Anglish Git. I'm saying he's a filthy English bastard/idiot.